Looks like we’ll be taking a trip to the dangerous side of things with the dystopian authors on the Danger Is My Middle Name panel at the Texas Teen Book Festival this year. Sarah J. Maas, Marie Lu, Joelle Charbonneau, and Garth Nix will be stirring up trouble!!!!
Sarah J. Maas
Sarah J. Maas is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Throne of Glass series. The third book, Heir of Fire, released this Tuesday and is on our shelves now! Throne of Glass follows the story of Celaena Sardothien in a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand. An assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion.
Fun Facts About Sarah J. Maas:
1) When she was a kid, she and her little brother had their names used in a Goosebumps book (The Curse of Camp Cold Lake). Spoiler: Her character dies. Horribly.
2) She loves doing jigsaw puzzles.
3) She’s an accomplished baker.
4) She can down a whole bowl of guac and bag of chips in the space of one Teen Wolf episode.
5) She is obsessed with really outrageous, fancy socks from Stance.
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Marie Lu
Marie Lu is the New York Times bestselling author of the Legend series. She will be at the Texas Teen Book Festival speaking and signing the first book in her new series, The Young Elites!!! The Young Elites follows a girl named Adelina, who has overcome a vicious fever and is left scarred and unwanted. She soon realizes that this isn’t the case because she possess a great power that the King and Queen want to terminate and others want to control.
Fun Facts About Marie Lu:
1) She was born in Beijing, China.
2) She attended the University of Southern California.
3) She Interned at Disney Interactive Studios.
4) Before becoming a full time Young Adult author, she was an art designer in the video gaming industry.
5) Her first book, Legend, is being made into a comic book!
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Joelle Charbonneau
Joelle Charbonneau is another New York Times bestselling author, with her dystopian debut series, The Testing. The books in The Testing are set in a post-apocalyptic world after The Seven Stages War left much of the planet a charred wasteland. The future belongs to the next generation’s chosen few who must rebuild it. But to enter this elite group, candidates must first pass The Testing—their one chance at a college education and a rewarding career. Joelle will be at TTBF with Graduation Day.
Fun Facts About Joelle Charbonneau:
1) She made an appearance on MTV’s WWF Heat as an escort to the Godfather.
2) She sang for President Clinton.
3) She never took an English class in college.
4) The Testing was inspired by one of her voice students when freaked out waiting for her college admittance letters.
5) Her master’s degree is in Opera Performance.
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Garth Nix
Garth Nix is an Australian writer who specializes in children’s and young adult fantasy novels, notably the Abhorsen series, The Seventh Tower series, and The Keys to the Kingdom series. He will be speaking about and signing Clariel, the fourth book in the Abhorsen series that’s been 10 years in the making!
Fun Facts About Garth Nix:
1) He lives in Sydney, Australia.
2) His first short story was published when he was 19.
3) When he was twelve, he caught an octopus three times his own size when he was out fishing.
4) His books are translated into 40 languages including Thai, Indonesian, and Finnish.
5) He was sitting next to a friend when he fell out of a flying helicopter (he was amazingly OK).
6) He wrote his first dozen or so novels with a pen, longhand, in paper notebooks
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The BookPeople Teen Press Corps is a group of teens who read, review and blog about books for BookPeople, the official bookseller for and co-founder of the Texas Teen Book Festival. Catch all of their regular blogging over at bookpeopleteens.wordpress.com.